Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

Not to be confused with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American football, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football, or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canadian football.

Wilmer Fuentes

Hi all, is there anyone on this project with knowledge/interest in South American football. I was visiting Wilmer Fuentes, and there's some information that I think it just nonsense and I'm happy to remove. The lede also says he played for Platense FC but I can't find any evidence of this, but on the other hand, I wouldn't know where to start to look for sources about Honduran football. Red Fiona (talk) 17:44, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

I’m not a South American football aficionado, but the Platense connection was introduced by an indefinitely banned user. My understanding is that Fuentes joined Platense's pre-season training and appeared close to agreeing a deal, but abruptly left and was subsequently spotted playing in a friendly for Lone FC . DUCKISJAMMMY🦁✿(talk) 19:38, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

It appears that Fuentes played first-team football for Marathón from 2009 to 2018. In the summer of 2018, he was prematurely reported to have signed for both Honduras Progreso and Real de Minas, although neither move appears to have been completed; an ankle injury may have complicated matters. He subsequently signed for Olancho FC (Potros) in August 2018, but it remains unclear whether he made any competitive appearances for the club. He then joined Real Sociedad, where he appears to have spent around two seasons before leaving professional football in 2021.

The subsequent timeline is less clear. Reports describe Fuentes experiencing serious complications from COVID-19 and later moving to the United States, where he continued playing amateur football. He was also linked with Atlético Júnior, reportedly playing for the Honduran second-division club, although the timing of that spell is uncertain. Parrillas One announced him as a signing in January 2022, but I have not established whether he made a competitive appearance for them or how the signing fits with reports that he had retired in 2021. One further detail is that, after leaving Platense's pre-season training without agreeing a deal in January 2019, he played for Lone FC until May that year. DUCKISJAMMMY🦁✿(talk) 20:33, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

The Marathón stats on the page seem the be taken from livesoccertv.com but that doesn't date all the way back, which national-football-teams.com does, but they're conflicting. DUCKISJAMMMY🦁✿(talk) 20:44, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much Red Fiona (talk) 21:18, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Jim Crossan § Requested move 16 October 2026

An editor has requested that Jim Crossan be moved to Jim Crossan (Irish footballer), which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Thanks! —1isall (talk | contribs) 18:54, 24 October 2026 (UTC)
(Notification provided by Move+)

Should American players of Mexican descent, who play for the Mexican national team, have their birth date listed in MDY or DMY format?

When Julian Araujo switched from the U.S. to the Mexican national team, his description was immediately changed from "soccer player" to "footballer" and his date of birth was changed from "August 13, 2001" to "13 August 2001". Similar story for Efraín Álvarez, Jorge Ruvalcaba and Brian Gutiérrez among others. All of them are American born and raised and although they're dual citizens, Mexico does not speak English so the articles would normally use American English.

I've changed some of them to say "soccer player" rather than "footballer" but should the birth dates be listed in American format or British/Mexican format? Crossover1370 (talk | contribs) 22:34, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Per MOS:TIES American English including MDY dates would be appropriate. C679 18:39, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, MDY. GiantSnowman 17:32, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I think the heights of these players should also be in ftin (m) format as well (e.g. 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) for Álvarez). Iggy Swan (Contribs) 20:04, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Multiple rows of zeros in international appearance table

Are multiple rows for consecutive years without international appearances necessary in a football infobox? User:Lorry Gundersen insisted on adding eight such rows (1939–1946) in Josef Bican citing Wikipedia:WikiProject_Football/Players#International, but I don't see any guidance there to do so. I checked players from a similar era and could only find tables for ones who 'missed' one year at a time, such as Stan Mortensen and Roy Bentley. Although I invited the user to WP:BRD, instead my edits including one to this page (lol) have been described as vandalism. As I am approaching or perhaps already at 3RR, I invite anybody from the project to weigh in. Thanks, C679 06:05, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

A single row with multiple years is practical and WP:COMMONSENSE.Matilda ^talk 08:28, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Agree, particularly for WWII periods where no football took place. Using Stanley Matthews from below as an example : his club career stats table has no lines for 1940-45, so why should his international career? Spike 'em (talk) 11:33, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

This has been discussed before but I'm not sure a consensus was reached. Stanley Matthews and Ian Callaghan both have multiple zeros - Matthews with the gap for the war and Callaghan just had a long gap between appearances. Personally I think including the zeros clarifies the span of the player's career and for most players you won't see long periods like the examples I've given

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_150#Added_years_with_no_apps_to_the_international_stats_table? ColchesterSid (talk) 08:38, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

This archived thread petered out, and you can argue whether that showed consensus or not, with a "compromise" position of Yes include zeros, and No dont show every single line when the gaps are in successive years. Some of this current discussion appears to be debating whether the zero lines need to be displayed at all, which is a different topic to the one raised.

To me, the examples of Matthews, Bican and especially Callaghan show that rows with zeros are not helpful. If those rows weren't there at Callaghan, you could see at a glance that he made appearances in just two years. The rows with zeros obscure that.

I think the only case where a row indicating zero appearances makes sense is when the player was on the bench that year. That might be difficult to establish depending on the player; if that's a widespread problem, I'd just leave the rows out altogether. Robby.is.on (talk) 12:43, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

That table in Callaghan's article looks really stupid IMO. I think anyone with any capacity whatsoever for logical reasoning could deduce that if there was a row for 1966 with 2 caps and a row for 1977 with 2 caps and a total at the bottom of 4 caps, then that means he didn't gain any caps in the years in between, without the need for loads of rows with 0s -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:05, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

yeah, it is ridiculous. If the reader needs things spelled out so much then why not add rows after their last international until their retirement date? Spike 'em (talk) 14:34, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I'm seemingly the only person who supports the inclusion of the 'zero' entries, but am well aware consensus is against me... GiantSnowman 16:58, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Have to agree that those "0" are not needed. Kante4 (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@GS I also agree that zeros should be included. A zero conveys a different message than a blank space (or n/a): it shows that we know that the player did not compete during those years. Removing the years might make it seem as if we are unsure whether the player took part in matches during that period. Nehme1499 (talk) 17:43, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

If appearance data is incomplete, then a note should be explicitly added to the table saying so. If we want to show that they definitely made no appearances for a particular year, then we'd be justified in adding 0 rows either side of their international appearances. Spike 'em (talk) 18:09, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I think it is better to include all years of the international career in the stats table. EchetusXe 18:18, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello! I also agree with GiantSnowman. The zeros show the player didn't make any international appearance in those years, e.g. Maarten Stekelenburg. Now, the reason why the footballer didn't play in those years is irrelevant in my opinion, i.e. it's irrelevant if it was due to war. Kind regards, Lorry Gundersen (talk) 18:24, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

WP:NOTSTATS

I've been doing some minor cleanup related to MoS for currency, and it has brought me to an inordinate number of football season related pages like 2014–15_ADO_Den_Haag_season and 2014–15_SBV_Vitesse_season that seem to me to be a giant list of statistics without any context; exactly the kind of content WP:NOTSTATS says does not belong on Wikipedia. How are we justifying standalone articles like these, given Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not? Sesamehoneytart 17:18, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

WP:NSEASONS applies. GiantSnowman 17:22, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

WP:NSEASONS is about notability, but my question is about the decision to make some of these seasons into a standalone article. Notability in itself is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Sesamehoneytart 17:35, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand how merging multiple seasons with matchboxes for each fixture and statistics tables into one mega article makes any sense. EchetusXe 18:20, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you. That solution doesn't make sense to me either. I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding about what I'm asking, and my fear is that there's a such widespread deviation from the Manual of Style- particularly on the topic of tables of indiscriminate data without context- that deviation from the Manual of Style has been accepted as normal here. While tables can help support prose, tables of data are not considered encyclopedic content on their own. There is a cleanup tab for sections that are solely tables of data (see here) but for articles like this one whose only prose is "nothing happened this season" followed by several tables of indiscriminate data with no context... I am terrified of how this will be received, but per WP:NOTSTATS, in the context they are currently in, the tables on that page don't belong on Wikipedia at all. Sesamehoneytart 20:12, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think you're explaining yourself clearly... GiantSnowman 20:16, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

In short, the articles need prose. They are correct to point out that, at the moment, potentially thousands of these articles exist as just tables of data and football boxes. You're lucky if you get more than a paragraph in the lead before nothing, not a single word of prose, alongside 30 plus football boxes and then tables of statistics. Add prose, even just a little, and they don't have this problem. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:33, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for rephrasing; I think that's a good way to put it. If WP:NSEASONS is going to be used to defend notability, then there should be a plan to eventually add said notable content to the article. I know these tables make sense to most of you, but giant tables of numbers are meaningless to a general audience. Some of them veer pretty close to the "excessive detail" grey area, but that's a conversation for a later day. Right now, I want to make sure we're on the same page about the necessity of prose to put data tables into context. Sesamehoneytart 22:03, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

• The data in those tables is not “indiscriminate”, e.g., random or haphazard. You can make a case that some season articles are not notable but game results, rosters, and scoring stats for a specific team in a specific year are the antithesis of indiscriminate. Cbl62 (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I do agree that season articles would be far better with more narrative text but that’s not IMO a basis for deleting articles or large swaths of content. Cbl62 (talk) 20:42, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

In the context of the policy, "indiscriminate" does not mean "random or haphazard". It means there is no clear distinction (a way to discriminate) between what data is considered encyclopedic content and at what point it becomes excessive detail about trivial subjects. Sesamehoneytart 22:12, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

The vast majority of club season articles are just awful. Probably a two sentence lead and then potentially dozens of busy multi-coloured tables with no associated prose whatsoever -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Agree with this. It is my impression that people start multiple seasons for one club, or start the new season for as many clubs as possible, with an intent for completionism. Except they're not complete at all. Journalists around the world are kept alive by writing daily updates for football clubs, so there is no problem in writing prose. Unknown Temptation (talk) 12:29, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Template:SC Corinthians Paulista managers

Hello, I need assistance with one matter which is not very clear to me: in the aforementioned template, I have added both William Batista (football manager) and Leonardo Porto as caretakers, since both were indeed caretakers before the first match in charge of the current head coach, Clarence Seedorf, although Porto was caretaker because Seedorf was not registered on time for the match. However, @Gsfelipe94 does not agree with my POV since he states it's just "a matter of burocracy" as Seedorf was "already announced".

What would be the correct approach here? Should we keep Porto in the template or not? It's important to highlight that Seedorf didn't coach Corinthians in any matches before Porto or William Batista's spells, so it's not the same scenario as the one where the head coach is suspended and his assistant takes over for one single match... BRDude⁷⁰ (talk) 20:56, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Include them. GiantSnowman 21:02, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

There is a clear difference. Batista was announced as interim for the match against Palmeiras as the club had no head coach whatsoever. Porto himself was already an assistant manager in that occasion. Then Seedorf was announced as manager on the same day from then onwards, including signing a contract. However, due to issues with his registration to manage the team, the assistant took charge for that match specifically. I don't see them as the same thing. Gsfelipe94 (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Edit warring on Cristiano Ronaldo totals

Hello! I am linking a discussion from the "list of footballers with 500 or more goals" talk page, so more people to participate in it. Kind regards, Lorry Gundersen (talk) 07:50, 30 October 2026 (UTC)